Star Wars has been experimenting with the world of anime for the last few years, and now one of the execs behind it all has teased how “spectacular” the new full anime series is as it gets ready to make its debut later this year. Star Wars and anime have made for a perfect team as the franchise has had three successful seasons of the Star Wars: Visions anthology that has taken its science fantasy world and given it a whole new makeover from multiple anime studios. But it’s all been shorts thus far.
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Star Wars is now in development on a full anime series based on the standout short from Star Wars: Visions, “The Ninth Jedi,” and Star Wars: Visions executive producer and vice president of animation development and production at Lucasfilm, Josh Rimes, spoke to Polygon about the series last year. Teasing how much more Lucasfilm is involved in the project because it’s a full series instead of just a short like in the anthology, Rimes revealed just how much of a “big endeavor” the project has been thus far.
Why The Ninth Jedi Continued in Star Wars: Visions
“As the Visions anthologies sprung to life, we began thinking about how to expand the storytelling medium of Visions beyond shorts,” Rimes began when bringing up the idea of expanding to a full anime series. “It’s really a testament to the shorts and their storytellers that so many gave us such lived in worlds and such vivid and exciting characters and adventures.” And on expanding that original “The Ninth Jedi” short with a sequel, Rimes revealed how they felt it had a lot of promise of expanding further.
“The world of The Ninth Jedi always felt so epic-scaled and the ending to the first short promised a grand journey to come, so discussions with director Kenji Kamiyama and the team at Production I.G naturally evolved,” Rimes continued. “We were just excited to hear their enthusiasm about Kara’s journey to find her father and her quest to restore the Jedi Order and how those two missions might dovetail or even come into conflict.” But on the full anime series itself, Rimes teased how different of a production it is.
Star Wars Exec Teases New Anime Series
“It was such a big endeavor — the first full on anime Star Wars series, so we would support the team from early pitch stages through designs and production as the story was built out,” Rimes explained further. “It truly is coming together in spectacular fashion and we can’t wait for the world to experience it next year.” But unfortunately, there’s currently no release date or window for this new Star Wars anime series as of this time.
Titled Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi, this new limited series was first announced to be in the works early last year. This new series will feature Kenji Kamiyama returning from the two previous Star Wars: Visions shorts as director and script supervisor, and will be taking place after the events of the two shorts. It’s scheduled to hit sometime this year, so fans can get excited either way.
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